


dream a little dream of me

by TheMoonMoths



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Doggy Style, Enemies With Benefits, F/M, Force Bond, Hate Sex, Let's Be Honest They Were Totally Doing It During the One Year Gap, Loss of Virginity, Masturbation, Post-TLJ, Semi-Public Sex, Smut, The Force Ships It, and i regret nothing, canonverse, or is it 👀, pre-tros, this is basically pwp, virgin!rey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:21:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24612202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMoonMoths/pseuds/TheMoonMoths
Summary: "I hate it when you cry.""I hateyou," Rey whispers, but the words sound frail even to her ears."Believe me," he says as a crazed kind of spark flashes in his dark eyes, "I know."And before she can muster up a response, before she can pull away, before her dazed and addled and scrambling mind catches up with what's about to happen—He kisses her.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 131
Kudos: 482





	1. Chapter 1

It happens six months after Crait. 

Rey is lying on her back, her eyes squeezed shut and brow knit in concentration. Her hand—the one that hasn't slipped underneath the waistband of her underwear—fists the sheets as she cants into her own touch. It's quiet, so quiet in her shadowy quarters, save for her ragged breaths. She intends to keep it that way and clamps her jaw. 

It's way past midnight, and the rest of the Resistance is sound asleep. There's no movement outside her window, just thick, velvet darkness, no sound echoing from the hall, either. She is well and truly alone, which is right what she needs after the kind of day, no, the kind of _month_ she's had.

Every day, General Organa has her running obstacle courses, practicing her forms, blocking, parrying, and slashing her way through waves of rusty training droids until she's so exhausted her knees turn wobbly. Then, just to drive her point home, Leia makes her fight through another wave, and only when Rey is the last woman standing among pieces of sparking circuitry is she allowed to meditate. 

_Clear your mind,_ Leia always says to her as Rey is levitating several feet above the green undergrowth. _Clear your mind, focus on the light, and the answers will come._

They never do. 

Day after day, this goes on. The training is ruthless, grueling, and good. It keeps her mind razor-sharp, her muscles tingling with a pleasant ache. 

There is a problem, though. 

The regime is so intense that there are nights like this one, nights when Rey just can't _sleep_.

It's like her mind is still reeling, stuck in the forward momentum of the day. Her body may be exhausted—sometimes she can barely heave herself onto her bed—but her mind won't stop buzzing like a fat dopplefly. Most of the time, she can zone the noise out, focus on her breathing and reach out to the stars until she drifts off, but tonight— 

Tonight, it's particularly bad. 

It's the war, Rey thinks, that has to be it. They'd gotten word that yet another budding rebellion had been squashed the previous night. The dissidents were rounded up and executed, the town that sheltered them was reduced to ashes, and now, twelve hours after the debriefing, she still can't _sleep_ . She's tried the breathing techniques (inhale for five seconds, hold it, exhale for eight), she's tried meditation—she's tried counting _gill-goats_ , for kriff's sake. 

Nothing.

And so this is how Rey finds herself working her clit with a desperation that has nothing to do with arousal. She knows there's no satisfaction waiting for her on the other side, just a rush and fleeting relief. But it should be enough—she _hopes_ it will be enough—to make her go out like a light after. 

Her movements are practiced and mechanical, her hand knows what to do while her mind stays carefully blank. It would go faster, she knows, if her imagination would kick in to speed things along, but she doesn't want it to wander, the same way she doesn't want herself to _wonder_. 

Near reluctantly, her blood starts to sting. Pulse spiking, the muscles in her legs tense as she draws her knees up. It's good, of course, it's _wonderful_ . It's sparks and electricity and light. The pleasure mounts and threatens to sweep her away; the relief she's chasing so single-mindedly, it's right there, just out of reach. All she needs is one last push, one final _something_ that will drive her over the edge.

That's when it happens.

That's when Rey makes a mistake.

She allows herself—just for a split and fleeting second, so tiny it couldn't have been a conscious decision—to think about _him_.

In that very instant, it all goes wrong. Her hand freezes, and so does Rey. Over the heavy beating of her heart, the thunderous pulse in her ears, her mind trips and stumbles until it catches up with what she's done, all attempts at pleasuring herself forgotten. She'd allowed him in while her defenses were down. After blocking him out for six months straight, after building an impenetrable wall that separated her side of the bond from his, she'd allowed him to slip through a tiny little crack. And now...

Now it's like a dam bursting. With terrible clarity, she can feel her precious defenses crumble to nothing, which means that—

Her breath catches in her throat as the reality of what is about to happen hits. 

The launches herself from the bed, the fine hairs at her nape standing up on end. The air goes still and eerily quiet—she'd forgotten that it does that, it's been so long—and Rey only has time to wipe her hand against her trousers, thankful that she'd been too tired to undress, when he's there.

In her quarters.

He's like a ghost, some macabre creature from her nightmares, clad from head to toe in that rough, black fabric that cascades from his shoulders like a waterfall. He could easily be mistaken for a statue if not for the way his chest jerks, just briefly, as he takes her in. 

At least, that's what she _thinks_ he's doing—he's wearing the mask again, though it's not the same one she remembers. This one has threads of scarlet that stretch like veins over the polished obsidian. Rey doesn't know what has prompted the change, but she _does_ know that she despises it just as much as the old one. 

For a moment there, it's all too much to process, and they both stare at each other as her heart races, and adrenaline surges through her blood. 

But then, he speaks.

"Rey." His voice is a mechanical rasp. "Either the Force has had enough of your meddling—or you missed me."

It strikes a chord within her—a terrible, dissonant chord. Her face splits into a snarl, and she summons her quarterstaff to her hand. 

" _Leave_ ," she hisses through bared teeth. "I don't want to see you."

The only thing she feels is poisonous anger as she moves to strike him, channeling months of pent-up frustration usually reserved for training droids. She's quick and deadly, but he's faster, lifting his hand and freezing her body mid-blow.

"The latter, then," he remarks, keeping her at an awkward stance. 

For a few, torturous seconds, all she can do is glare. Then, she manages to break through and stumbles forward. She almost sneaks in a blow aimed at his stomach, but he sidesteps it with ease, still not unholstering his own weapon. A near inhuman sound of frustration escapes her throat; she's furious, so unfathomably furious that the outer corners of her eyes start to sting, and she lunges again. 

" _I—said—leave!_ "

Each word is punctuated by a strike. Each missing by a hair's breadth. 

Yet another thing she's forgotten—how, despite his burly frame, he can move with the fluidity of water. Or maybe it's their bond, pulsing to life like it has surfaced for air, guiding his movements, helping him read her every intent. 

This goes on until she's herded him against the wall, still slashing and hacking and growling at her unarmed target. So far, he's been solely on the defensive. 

As his back connects with the wall, he switches up his strategy. 

There it is again, that deadly grace. It perks its head as he shifts with the speed of a viper striking a prey. He dives and grabs her, black leather closing around her wrists as he spins her and roughly pushes her up against the wall. 

The quarterstaff clatters to the ground. Rey tries to fight him off. She is a wild animal caught in a snare, and she thrashes for her life, doing everything she can to wrench herself free from his hold. She tries to kick and yank, but with her every move, he crowds her even more until she's so trapped she can barely move, barely _breathe_. 

Chest heaving, she regains just enough composure to note how casual his posture is, how his head is cocked like he's studying a curious artifact. Something inside her dies a little. It's unfair, so unfair that she can barely choke back a bitter sob. They may be evenly matched in the Force, and she may have pushed herself to the limit in terms of combat training, but in terms of raw, physical strength, there is simply nothing she can do to overpower him. 

No, she's all worn-out and breathless, and here he is, subduing her with seemingly no effort at all, like he's not even _trying_. 

"Is this how you treat an old friend?"

As if crowding her against the wall isn't enough, he still needs to rub it in by _mocking_ her. Rey tries to break free one last time and closes her eyes. The one thing she can still do is prevent him from seeing the tears of frustration spill down her cheeks.

"Liar. We're not friends."

"I'm not in the habit of lying," he says. "You, on the other hand..."

"We were _never_ friends."

A couple of moments pass; the silence is heavy and full of ice, and he says nothing. Something inside Rey tightens. A small, fearless part of her expects retaliation, his anger. That, she could work with, _fight_ , even, but there is nothing. Only his unwavering grip on her wrists and the stretching silence. When he speaks again, his voice seems quieter. Smaller. It is so far from what she expected that Rey, despite herself, cracks open her eyes to peer up at him. 

"There was a moment when we could've been anything." As Rey watches him, he is a dark, bottomless void, betraying nothing. "I offered you the galaxy—offered you _myself,_ and you turned your back on me. Left me for the filth you call your friends."

Slowly, like she was a skittish animal, he lets her go and takes a small step back, giving her some much-needed space. Rey huffs and rubs her wrists, keeping her gaze locked on his mask in case he has something else up his sleeve. 

"Everyone can fall prey to a moment of weakness," she tells him. "You still haven't learned that not everyone has the privilege of getting what they want no matter what. You presented me with an impossible choice. If you knew me at all, you'd know that I would never say yes to that."

"That you would never say yes to me, you mean."

Rey sets her jaw, eyes dropping down to her hands. She knows what he wants her to say; what he so fervently desires to hear. 

She'll never give him the satisfaction. 

"Your mask. Take it off."

"Why?" he asks. "I thought you didn't want to see me."

"Because—" It's true, she has no desire to see his face for reasons she doesn't want to get into, but how can she explain to him that the vulnerability he can see on her face needs to be mirrored on his? That there is some precarious balance that needs them on an equal playing field, one that he is refusing to acknowledge through his needless posturing. She lets out a deep breath. It comes out sounding more like a growl. "Just take that thing off, Ben. I can't talk to you like this."

For a few moments, he doesn't move. There is a part of her that almost feels relieved that this won't be the day she'll be seeing the face that haunts both her daydreams and nightmares alike. He simply stands there, hands at his sides. Sizing her up. 

But then he reaches up. There's a deep click, a hiss, and the mask is off. 

Rey shivers.

For months, the only thing she'd heard about him is of the terror he's been reigning on the galaxy. The lives his regime has taken, the cities they've leveled. It is almost jarring, then, that the face underneath the mask is the same exact one she remembers. Long and almost boyish, the scar healed to a faint line over his eye and down his cheek. And it could be a trick of the light, it has to be, because for a split second, right after he's shaken some dark, wayward strands from his face, he looks—

He looks _sad_.

But Rey doesn't have time to dwell on it too deeply. He turns to drop the mask on some metallic surface she can't see, and once he faces her again, his expression is impassive, almost bored-looking. Challenging in its blankness.

"Well?" he asks. "Did you wish to admire your handiwork? It's healing well, I'm afraid. The med-droids tell me it will never fully fade, but I think I'm beginning to grow fond of it."

She frowns and shakes her head in a wordless request for silence. Yes, he looks exactly the same, but there is something about him that's off. Something she can't quite put her finger on. 

Rey takes a small step forward. Ben retreats the same distance back. 

Now he does look wary, his shoulders squaring, eyes darting across her face with alert. Eyes that gleam in the color of whiskey, that can give away so much when he's not being careful. 

And Rey _knows_ that she shouldn't do this; her rational mind is screaming at her to stop, but it's overpowered by an outside force, an inexplicable pull she can't resist to cross the gap between them and reach out. 

Ben is frozen still as she draws nearer. When the tips of her fingers touch his cheek, he flinches, just slightly, and freezes again. Rey, almost in a daze, lets her fingers lightly trace along the side of his face, the line of his jaw, and she—

It’s hard not to recoil when she finds what she's looking for. 

There was never much light in him to begin with, but now, on the inside, he’s a moonless winter night. It gives her whiplash; brushing against his Force signature feels like dipping head-first into a freezing void, but his skin is warm, so warm to touch. 

Her breath hitches, and her hand shoots back to safety, the spell of the moment broken. 

"What happened to you?" she whispers. "There's hardly any light in you left."

He scoffs at that. "We went our separate ways, Rey. You made your choice six months ago, and so did I. It's too late to care."

Her hand, the one still buzzing with an echo of his skin, clenches into a fist.

"Blaming me for your short-comings is low even for you," she grits out. "And you're right, I _don't_ care. You're free to destroy yourself in any way you see fit."

She regrets saying it the second the words leave her mouth, but it's too late. His eyes are already flashing with hurt. 

"I wish we never met, " he says with something broken around the edges of his tone. "Sometimes I think it would've been better for everyone if either of us managed to deal the finishing blow in the forest."

Her nails dig into the palm of her hand. The pain is a welcome distraction, and she presses down harder until she's on the verge of drawing blood. 

She doesn't know if it's him who's inched nearer, or her. It has to be the same magnetism that made her touch him a moment ago, that pulls them together despite being parsecs apart. Suddenly, his face is so close she can count every freckle on the bridge of his nose, every beauty mark mottling his stark, pale skin. He's so tall that, this close, he has to crane his neck at an uncomfortable-looking angle to meet her eyes. 

Rey stands her ground and straightens.

"There's still a chance for a duel. I've been training for just the day."

His Force signature surrounds her with pure ice; it bleeds into hers—into _her_ —like a fever. It's overwhelming, dark but somehow also bright, making chills erupt down her spine. Long overdue tears finally overflow, and he watches as they trail down her face with a closed expression. 

"I hate it when you cry."

"I hate _you_ ," Rey whispers, but the words sound frail even to her ears. 

"Believe me," he says as a crazed kind of spark flashes in his dark eyes, "I know."

And before she can muster up a response, before she can pull away, before her dazed and addled and scrambling mind catches up with what's about to happen— 

He kisses her.

It's rough, though it feels more like a statement rather than a demand. His gloved hand is quick to curve around her nape, pressing her closer, and Rey is so dumbstruck that she _yelps_ against his lips. The sound comes out muffled, and it's as if he swallows it whole, not stopping until her head starts spinning, until legs threaten to give out underneath her. 

There is an edge to something wild, nearly desperate to the way he keeps kissing her over and over, something that Rey, to her horror, recognizes as echoing from within her. It's her first proper kiss, she realizes, and her stomach flips. She should be mortified that he took it from her without asking, but she just—isn't. 

As far as she can tell, there's no rational explanation, then, as to why she finds herself kissing him back. As to why her hands have fisted his tunic instead of shoving him away while her cheeks are still wet with tears. His lips are moving in tandem with hers, so insistent in their dance, and something inside her sings.

Then it stops, as abruptly as it began, and they're both left panting. 

There's a subtle, rosy tint to the high points of his cheeks and the tips of his ears that wasn't there before, a gleam to his eyes. Rey herself has no clue what she looks like to him at this very moment; she feels a strange, momentary disconnect to her own body. As if it's all happening to someone else.

"There," he huffs out. His hand is still on the back of her neck like he's forgotten it's there. "Now we won't have to wonder anymore."

"I wasn't," she automatically retorts, feeling a warmth creep up her own face. "Don't do that again."

"I won't."

His hand slithers out from its hold, setting her free. He moves to pull away—which is exactly what she'd wanted, wasn't it—but there's something still keeping him in place. It's her, they both realize as they gaze down at her hands, fingers still clutching his tunic. 

"Do you mind?" he asks drily.

She swallows, heart pounding in her chest. Thoughts racing at break-neck speed.

It should be the simplest, most natural thing. To let him go. To deny him the satisfaction of being right. But as she stares at her hands, she finds that she can't. 

Can't or maybe, just maybe, doesn't want to.

She shoots a quick glance at the door, focusing her senses on the surroundings. She can detect no movement in the corridor, no sounds. No distractions of any kind. Rey thinks it has something to do with the nature of their Force connections; how it envelops them like a bubble, blocking any and all interference from the outside. If no one heard the sounds of their scuffle, it is safe to assume they wouldn't hear anything else either.

In short, they are free.

It's an oddly thrilling thought.

Before she can talk herself out of it, before she pinpoints even one out of the many reasons why this a spectacularly bad idea, one that she would never live down, she uses her grip on Ben to nudge him into leaning down. The last thing she can see before she closes her eyes and, with it, the insurmountable gap between them, is the guarded look on his face.

Even though it starts off gently, with a slow, experimental brush of her lips against his, in no time at all, it dissolves into something mindless and primal once again. He is pliant and willing, and so is she; they are a flame that's left unattended, one that has turned into an inferno, sweeping up them both. Her hands loop around his neck as his own find purchase on her waist, and then he is coaxing her mouth open with a small swipe of his tongue along her bottom lip, and her mind goes completely quiet.

They don't go easy on each other, there's too much all-encompassing need. In their sheer frenzy, they grow nearly sloppy, but both are past caring. Rey bites down at his lower lip, and he makes the softest sound in response; it seeps down her entire body like heat. 

No, there's nothing gentle about it. They don't know how, she thinks.

Her back connects with the wall once again, and he switches to urgent, forceful kisses down her jaw, then along the column of her neck. He nips at the sensitive skin there, burying his face in the crook of her neck, and her breath hitches as he finds the spot, just the spot that draws out a sound from her throat that she'd be embarrassed to death by under any other circumstances. 

Just like that, she becomes uncomfortably aware of how sopping wet she still is between her legs. 

He stills in his ministrations, stiffening like a dog that's caught a scent, and lifts his head.

"What were you doing before this?" he asks even though he knows the answer. She can tell by the hungry look in his eyes. He must have caught an errant strand of her thoughts through the bond. 

Ben knows but wants her to say it. 

She won't. She shakes his hands off her waist instead. 

"Were you thinking about me?" he asks and plants a hand on the wall next to her head, voice low and teasing. "Because I, for one, have thought about you often."

"I try not to. You're distracting."

He fixes her with a penetrating stare, then huffs. 

"Look at you, always simmering with anger. You'd make a good Sith."

"If this is your way of getting me to switch sides—"

"It isn't," he cuts her off. "You've made it clear that it's not in the stars for us to be friends. No point in trying."

"Not friends," she echoes; with the way her vision is still dancing, it's hard to string even a semblance of a sentence together. "Never."

"No."

His gaze, so dark and yet so clear, slithers down to her lips.

A beat passes, and they're on each other again like they never stopped. Like the minute spent bickering was a minute wasted when they could've been doing _this_. 

Her hands tangle in his hair, soft and twisting around her fingers like water. They kiss the same way they fight—fiercely and mercilessly. Her back is pressed against the crisp white wallpaper, his hand is sneaking around her waist to pull her closer to his chest, and Rey can't find it in her to feel any trepidation. 

She's too far gone. 

She wants this. 

Any rational thought is superseded by raw, animalistic instinct, and Rey arches into him. Who knows how many layers he's wearing—it feels like a lot—but even through it all, she finds him hard and pressing up against her lower stomach, just as desperate for her as she is for him. He shudders at the contact as she lets out a soft little gasp, one that he swallows whole, laps away with his tongue, and he rewards her with grinding his hips against hers, letting her feel him. 

Something inside her stomach short-circuits, launching her into a free-fall. She's throbbing and aching for him, all desire and no sense, and they spent a few blissful moments simply moving against each other in short, desperate undulations of their hips, a vague approximation of what they're both after. 

Her hands reach out, groping around his chest, then lower. They're moving on their own accord, and Rey lets them, listlessly at first, just to feel him, solid and firm and warm in her arms. 

Then she grows impatient. Ben seems perfectly content with making out, but Rey is out for blood. The pathways of her hands grow slower, more deliberate. She's searching now, fingers groping blindly for a button or some fastenings—anything at all that would help her undress him, but comes up empty.

_Really_. 

The next time they surface for air, which is soon, Rey frowns at him as he presses his red, slightly swollen lips together in a tight line. 

"Take it off," she orders.

He cocks his head. "Take what off?"

Rey sighs. He is definitely more tolerable when his mouth is busy with not talking. 

" _Everything_. And hurry—we don't have much time."

For the first time, something like doubt flickers in his eyes. 

"Are you sure?" he asks. 

Then, he steals another kiss to her lips, pulling back before she can reciprocate. Like he can't help himself.

"Do you—" She swallows, her mouth dry. "Do you not want to?"

As if to make a point, he presses his hips against her, drawing the motion out slowly and without breaking eye contact. Demonstrating, with no room for debate, that there is definitely a part of him, a very hard part, that is desperate for attention.

"I do want you," he says quietly. 

Rey nods. "As long as we're clear on what this is and isn't..."

At her words, his face hardens. 

Silence hangs in the air. He untangles himself from her, pulling away, and Rey has to fight an overwhelming urge for his touch. She's keenly aware that something is off. His stony expression sets off her warning signals in her brain, bad enough that she's starting to believe he's changed his mind after all. 

Which, perhaps, would be for the best. 

"Fine by me," he finally says, tone clipped. "Where's your bed?" She vaguely nods at somewhere behind his back, surprised, even—no, not relieved. When Ben speaks, there is resolution in his eyes, even though it's cold. Cold like his Force signature. "No point in further preamble, I suppose. Go." 

She crosses her small distance and perches on the edge of the bed. Her hands clench the soft fabric of her sheets, unsure of what to do, how to proceed. It would help if he was showing more enthusiasm. After all, wasn't this what he was after all along? Wasn't this what he'd _wanted_ from her, so much so that'd been willing to risk his life by slaying his old master?

And yet, he still hasn't moved. Ben is gazing at her from the other side of the room with an indecipherable look on his face. Once she catches his eyes and raises her eyebrows, he lets out a deep sigh. 

Then, he sweeps across the room.

Her heart jumps to her throat. A nervous energy courses through her system. Before she can as much as blink, he's leaning down, soft lips crashing into hers, a hand cupping the side of her neck. A possessive gesture, she thinks, but one that she'll let slide. As with so many things in his life, he is ruthless and driven to a fault; she's barely begun responding to his bruising kisses when he's already directing her down. 

Unable to resist both him and gravity at once, Rey acquiesces and scoots up the bed, elbows propped against the mattress. He follows, crawling over her as his eyes rake down the length of her. Instinct urges her to clench her thighs; her underwear is soaked through, but he's positioned himself between her legs. She boosts herself a little higher, cranes her neck up, so close to him now that she can feel the brush of his breath against her face.

But he doesn't kiss her. And so, in turn, she doesn't kiss him. 

For an endless second, they take each other in. 

A calm before a storm. 

"I'll touch you first," he intones. 

It's downright unfair what his velveteen voice does to her. Dazedly, Rey shakes her head. 

"I'm good," she manages to say, a little breathless. 

He doesn't show any outward signs of surprise, doesn't show any emotions at all. He's walled himself up in the Force, she realizes. Compartmentalized and locked his inner storm away. Maybe if they were on better terms, he could show her how. There are, in fact, so many things that he could teach her—things that neither Leia nor the trusty Jedi tomes would ever reveal. 

But right now, there is only one thing of his that she wants. 

His dark gaze flutters to her lips. She sucks in a breath, waits and—nothing. 

"Mind if I check?" he asks instead.

She swallows and shakes her head again. She surges forward to catch his lips, but he evades her and sits up, surprisingly deft fingers beginning to work on undoing her intricate utility belt, first the section around her waist, then the one sneaking down her waist and looping around her thigh. Rey can only blink, puzzled. 

"Is something wrong?" she asks as his palm slides underneath her thigh, coaxing it up to unfasten the last buckle.

Ben doesn't meet her eyes as he pulls the whole belt off in one fell swoop. He exhales a laugh that doesn't reach his eyes, and, just for a second, his hand lingers at the underside of her thigh, skimming the soft tissue in a way that makes her want to squirm. 

"I'm honoring the boundaries you set, Rey," he tells her matter-of-factly. "I'll fuck you, and we'll go on our separate ways. No strings attached."

She feels her hackles rise and makes a frustrated noise. 

"I didn't mean that you shouldn't—" she sputters, "that _we_ shouldn't kiss anymore."

The grip on her thigh tightens. 

"But I did." 

She has nothing to say to that, nothing rational, anyway, so he shifts to the side and starts on peeling off her trousers. She lifts her hips for him near involuntarily, before she can register what she's doing, responding to him out of the same instinct that makes them so evenly matched in the Force, that intangible, shared space that forever hangs over them like starlight. 

Then her legs are bared, and he's between them again, the loose, off-white folds of her tunic pooling and twisting around her. He parts the fabric without a second thought, taking in the view. 

"You really are wet," he mumbles, almost in awe, as his fingers trail up and up to where she needs him the most, "aren't you?"

Rey grits her teeth. 

"How about instead of sitting there, pointing out the obvious, you do something about it?"

For a painful moment, Ben doesn't do anything about it. Thankfully, before she does something truly stupid like begging, the facade of restraint he's put up crumbles, and he touches her sex through her underwear. Her stomach flips. The thin layer of fabric is negligible, wonderfully frustrating, as he presses his fingers against the wet gusset of her underwear, and her breath hitches when he probes her entrance as far as the strip of cotton is letting him, which, all in all, isn't deep at all. 

Not nearly as deep as she wants or needs right now. 

He can't feel how wet she is, but he can _see_ it, and he drags his inquisitive fingers up until they connect with the spot that makes her entire body jump, a helpless sound escaping her throat. He keeps it there, pressing down harder, piercing eyes glued to the slope of her body that cants into his touch as a shadow of a dark thrill echoes on his face. 

He keeps his hand there and doesn't _move_ it. 

"In terms of the rematch we never got," he muses, "I think this will do nicely."

Rey, who is throbbing against his hand, is not in the mood for games. Her hand shoots down and covers his, grabbing his wrist. He watches her inquisitively as she, long past feeling any shame, shows him exactly how to touch her, the right pace, the pressure she's always set for herself. The relief that washes over her when he plays along, keeps up the slow, circular pattern even after she's closed her eyes and relaxed, is a palpable thing washing over her, carrying her far, far away.

His fingers are so much thicker than hers, and the gloves only add to the effect, and Rey finds that she doesn't mind at all. She's never been touched by anyone else, not in this way, not when she can do such a terrific job herself. But there is something to it, as she is finding out, a certain freedom in letting go in someone else's hands, and the tendrils of satisfaction laced with smugness that are coming from his side of the bond don't escape her notice, either. 

He grows impatient, or maybe curious, and his hand dives underneath her waistband. The scrape of a rough leather seam against her oversensitive clit feels strange and new in the best possible way. She's coating her glove with her slick, but Ben doesn't seem to mind; he keeps up the movements, lightly picking up the pace, as familiar pressure begins building up inside her, the first, tentative sparks beginning to dance in the pit of her stomach. 

"Should I—should I help you too?" she asks in a bout of lucidity. 

His free hand leaves her thigh to palm his length through his trousers as he considers her offer. 

"No," he says. "You'll be ready soon enough anyway."

She shoots him a spiteful look. "I _am_ ready."

The beginnings of the faintest smirk tug at the corner of his mouth. 

"We'll see about that."

Then, without a single warning, he rips her underwear. Rey bolts up on her elbows, shock and mortification rendering her momentarily speechless as he tosses the ruined scrap of clothing aside. 

"That was _mine_ , you boor," she spits, though the effect of her dismay is somewhat negated by the lewd way she's now splayed out before him. "You can't just— _do that_ without asking!"

"It was in my way," he explains dismissively. 

A strangled cry catches in her throat as he slips a finger in. It fits, but barely so, and the suddenness of it all makes every muscle in her body draw taut. His eyes gleam with exhilaration and something else, something darker that makes her want to clench around his clever hand and whine, but she doesn't.

She stays put and breathes.

He moves his finger tentatively, just to try it out, curving it along her inner walls. It's such a strange sensation, how far he can reach, how _much_ it already is. Soon enough, though, the newness of it wanes and she finds herself wanting— 

"Another."

He's quick to obey. Rey has to spread her legs a bit wider, but it's no matter. 

She wants this. 

She's burning for him. 

He's leaning over her again, hand planted next to her head as the other one fucks her. The sound of his leather glove working her is wet and absolutely filthy, and Rey can't quite school her features into relaxing. She feels like a wild thing, keening, bucking her hips against his hand, so full of him she can barely breathe. A flicker of self-consciousness stings at the edge of her awareness, urging her to close her eyes, to quell her noises, but she finds herself oddly fixated by his gaze, unable to tear hers away.

It's not quite intimacy, what they're doing, because they don't do intimacy. But whatever this whole twisted affair may be, it feels right. 

That is, until he opens his mouth again.

"Will you feel guilty after, little Jedi?" he taunts her as his thumb circles her clit. "For someone so self-righteous, you sure seem to be enjoying yourself. I wonder if you'll go in denial tomorrow—you're good at that, too." 

"What I think and how I feel is no business of yours," Rey bites back. "Nobody knows me—not the spacers on Jakku, not the rebels, and not you, either. This will end with the connection."

"Until the next one."

She should probably fight him more, it's what she always falls back on when she's at a loss, but he's working her clit so thoroughly that all her unsaid protests sizzle out on her tongue. She'd never given much thought to what her first time would be like; there were always, always bigger things to worry about. Love and intimacy were always abstract concepts to be put on the back burner, neatly tucked away until, one day, she would have it all figured out. 

But that day never came. 

So why is it that when he pulls his hand away, when he gives her a final look that more resembles a warning, the only thing she can feel is flutters of anticipation instead of fear? Rey doesn't even want to begin to examine why she is trusting him with herself in this way. It must be the bond, she reasons. They may be strangers, but he's gotten under her skin through the Force. This must be why it's easier. 

She reaches around him to unfasten the wide belt around his waist, but he gently pushes her hand away and gets up on his knees. 

Before she can stop herself, a question springs from her lips. 

"Why do you cover yourself up like that?"

Her words elicit a small frown from him. As if he hadn't considered it in quite those terms before.

"It's armor," he murmurs with a note of caution as he wipes his hand against the top sheet. "I need it for field combat, that's all."

Rey huffs. "Right, because this right here is a real life-or-death kind of situation, how could I forget."

"You did attack me," he points out. 

There's nothing accusatory about the way he says it, but Rey shifts anyway, suddenly uncomfortable.

"You—surprised me. It's not every day that an enemy materializes into my bedroom," she explains, biting her tongue before she says anything more damning.

Ben looks down his nose at her, thoroughly unimpressed. He leans down for just a second, so close to her that her eyelids flutter closed. She breathes him in—smoke and musk and the dry scent of earth before a lightning storm—and he nudges his nose against hers, lips ghosting over hers, daring her to close the infinitesimal gap across the stars. 

She wants to, _really_ wants to, the memory of their searing kisses etched into the forefront of her mind, but she knows he'd use it against her later. That what he wants most of all is to teach her a lesson she doesn't need. Rey turns it around on him by arching her body into his; it elicits a pained little gasp from him once she presses up to where he needs her the most. 

It's music to her ears. 

"We've caused each other a great deal of pain. Let's balance it while we have the chance before we have to go on and clash again in the future."

Her words are a muted caress against his lips, her voice hoarse and barely recognizable as belonging to her. Ben murmurs something like acknowledgment and pulls away, resuming his seemingly preferred position of looming over her. 

"Turn around and get on your knees."

Rey blinks. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me," he intones, gloved hand nudging the underside of her thigh in an attempt to get her to move. "I'll take you from behind." She must be ogling at him something fierce because he lets out an exasperated sigh. "It's either this or nothing, Rey. Your choice."

He's regarding her with a stern look that suggests he's already set his mind, waiting as she wrestles with a decision that has left her feeling a touch unmoored, and then she's nodding, the distant drumbeat of her own pulse thudding in her temples, and flouncing to her stomach before nerves get the better of her.

After that, everything unravels all too quickly. 

She's barely managed to rise on her forearms, every muscle in her body rigid. Rey can't see him anymore, which is somehow both much better and worse. She can hear the rustle and shuffle of fabric behind her, the sound of a button popping open. He places a hand on her hip; the leather is impersonal, but the touch itself feels like a small reassurance, and then, before she can collect herself, she feels the blunt tip of him poking at her wet center.

She _jolts_. 

It's an automatic reaction; her body seems to be coasting on a dangerous mix of adrenaline and lust, mind scrambling to keep up.

"Wait…" she breathes. 

He halts. Waits, though still keeping himself notched against her entrance, nudging at her slick. 

It's distracting, to say the least. 

"Do you—" She takes a shaky breath, all too aware that she's stalling, that this isn't at all how a normal first time should go. But, then again, neither of them are exactly normal people. "I don't have—the chip thing."

"The contraception chip? I have it—it's fine," he replies.

A long pause follows, and then she cranes her neck to peer at him over her shoulder. 

He's waiting for her, still fully dressed, eyes cold and unyielding. In fact, the only thing hinting at him being affected by this too is the slight flush that's crept up his neck. 

"Ask," he challenges her. "If that's something you wish to know about."

She swivels her head back and shakes it at the quasiwood headboard in front of her, biting her tongue. He has his private life, and she has hers; like she said, he's free to do whatever he wants in his spare time— _whomever_ he wants, apparently. 

Boundaries.

"I'm ready," she whispers as she wills her body to unwind, eyes drifting shut.

He needs no further prompting. He enters her with one sharp thrust of his hips and a grunt, burying himself almost all the way. There's nothing delicate—or even pleasant—about it, and Rey has to fist the sheets and stifle a cry as the grip on her waist turns into solid steel. Distantly, over the protests of her body upon the sudden intrusion, she senses him through the bond, which flows more freely now that its owners are preoccupied, and it is with considerable relief that she finds him just as momentarily overwhelmed as she is. 

She knows that he's taking a moment to breathe and ground himself, though his own disheveled state is borne of an excess of pleasure rather than discomfort. She knows, also, without needing to look, that he's gazing down at where they're joined with something like awe, gloved hand skimming over her curves. 

The pain is ebbing and turning into a dull ache, though not nearly as quickly as she'd like. Rey curses under her breath and sets to work, balancing herself on one hand as the other sneaks down her body, honing in on her swollen clit. 

He starts moving too. To his credit, he goes easy on her at first, keeping his thrusts shallow, his pace steady as, little by little, he breaks her in, which, granted, is not the most flattering of analogies, but that is what it feels like for Rey as her body adapts to this completely strange new sensation of being filled, of being fucked. She feels less like a person and more like a storm cloud; her every nerve ending is on edge, like she'll erupt into a flurry of lightning if pushed too far. 

A dark chuckle rings from behind her. 

"Waxing poetic, are we?"

Rey bristles. "Get out of my head, how many times must we go over—"

"Can't, unfortunately," he shoots back, though with an edge of raw breathlessness that makes her stomach coil. "Not much is known about this particular— _application_ of a Force bond; this may well be one of the side-effects."

"Great," she grouches. "Make yourself at home, then."

"I'm very good, thank you," he tells her and rocks his hips in a way that drives him in just a bit deeper. 

It's hard to tell who gasps harder.

Sweat breaks out all over her shoulders and her upper arms as the Force spikes with a fresh surge of arousal. White-hot tension crackles just beneath the surface of her skin. Rey is still not entirely used to harboring him inside like this, but it also doesn't hurt anymore, and her deft fingers are doing a lot of the heavy lifting as she, teeth grit, brings herself ever closer to her peak with single-minded focus. She even finds herself clamping down on him in a mindless bid for more, and his pace falters, the grip on her waist wavering as he scrambles to regain purchase on her hip. 

" _Rey_ ," he hisses, which she answers with a wordless sound. "Force, you feel so—" He breaks off and tries again, voice hoarse. "Think you can handle more?"

Her climax is hanging tantalizingly within reach, but he's slowing down now, which frustrates her to no end, so it is out of both chasing the encroaching pleasure as well as sheer, defiant spite that she says, "Do your worst."

"Quite the confidence coming from someone who can barely take me," he teases her, still not speeding up, and in a flash of anger, Rey spares a glance to shoot him daggers over her shoulder. 

There is a wild gleam to his eyes, and she makes sure to hold his gaze as she matches his thrust, perhaps a touch too aggressively, because all of a sudden, he's buried to the hilt. 

He's thick and hard inside her, and she's so full of him she can't hear herself _think_. 

A deep, guttural sound escapes his lips; he _growls_ at her and grabs her hips with renewed vigor, and then she's gone, more than gone, as he starts ramming into her again and again and again like he is punishing her. Each thrust is punctuated with something like an electric shock, her vision blinking out into white light, and she does her best to match him, to seek out every drop of pleasure on one wobbly arm that's clawing at the sheets.

She breaks around him not long after, shattering into a million pieces with a cry. Her orgasm is so cutting it almost hurts, but it's the kind of pain she doesn't mind, will never mind, as it crashes through her body and knocks the air out of her lungs. 

He follows just as her arms finally give out. The warm echo of his pleasure through the bond sweetens her own, and when he empties himself inside her in hot splashes of heat, groaning, she collapses entirely, drenched in sweat and breathless and too blissed out to care about anything at all.

  
  
  


* * *

The girl sleeps like a loth-cat with her knees drawn up to her chin. They haven't exchanged a word, not since he'd pulled out, tucked himself back in, and lightly checked in with her. She'd nodded, just a sharp dip of her chin, avoiding his eyes and proceeded to curl in on herself. With how little she seems to trust him, he's surprised she fell asleep at all, what with him still there, leaning against the headboard right next to her and one leg thrown over the other. 

She must've been exhausted, he reasons. She was out like a light in seconds. 

Tomorrow, she'll wake up with his come between her thighs. She'll be ashamed, most probably, maybe even mortified. No matter what she does, though, he's already made his mark on her. With a morbid sense of triumph, it dawns on him that she'll never be able to wash him off, not entirely.

It's not quite what he'd envisioned for the two of them, but life has always had a way of crushing his every intent. 

At this point, he'll take what he can get.

Now she's sound asleep, chest rising and falling in her sinewy frame. Ben can't bring himself to tear his eyes from her and hates himself for it, hates _her_ for the power she holds over him without even trying. 

The little ball of cream-colored fabric that is Rey twitches. A beat, and it happens again. And again. 

She's having a nightmare.

He catches the inside of his lower lip with his teeth, contemplating. He knows he shouldn't, but curiosity gets the best of him, and he reaches out until his hand is hovering over the disheveled remains of her buns. 

And what a nightmare it is. 

She's drowning in quicksand, her desperate cries for help ringing unanswered over gleaming golden dunes. The sand is scorching hot, almost up to her neck, and her wild thrashing only pulls her in deeper. There's no one there to save her, no one at all, but she's still kicking and screaming, refusing to give up hope. 

His hand falters. Ben hesitates, just for a moment, then sighs.

The nightmare melts into something else. He places her in a forest, the lushest one he knows, and leaves her there to peruse and explore it to her heart's content. He considers inserting himself there with her but decides against it. 

And then, when her racing heartbeat slows and the crease in her brow smooths out, he goes to sleep, too. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m so happy that you enjoyed the first installment so here comes the second, now featuring an extra feral (read: horny) Rey! ❤️  
> Enjoy xx

The second time comes only a week later.

It couldn't have happened at a worse moment. 

He’s sitting at the head of the long conference table, its smooth, obsidian surface gleaming under the holo-lights like a dark mirror, wishing he was wearing a mask. What he looks like under it is no secret—it never has been—but it's about the message it sends, the fear it sows. To his underlings, he is supposed to represent something grander than flesh and blood, someone worthy of his grandfather's legacy. 

Which, admittedly, is easier said than done when his face is bared, and he's trying to stifle a yawn as the drone of his High Command's voices bleeds into unintelligible humming. 

He's so caught up in his own head that it takes him too long to notice that the soft fade-out of all noise has, in fact, nothing to do with boredom.

No.

It's _her_ , he realizes with a small start, blood freezing in his veins. He snaps to attention and sits up, curling his hands into fists. Some of the commanders sitting closest steal a side-eyed glance at him, but, right now, he couldn't care less about them. The connection will finish bridging at a moment's notice, and he's _stuck_ here. 

A heartbeat later, it happens. Rey appears a little off to the side, a specter in the most flowing garb of pristine white, catching his eyes the moment he spots her. She's also unaware of being two mere steps away from bumping into Hux or Pryde, though, the technicalities of how _that_ cross-spatial interaction would play out escape even him, the person who's poured over every scrap of texts regarding Force bonds, who's spent the little free time he has obsessively rifling through the archives. For a moment, a tinge of academic curiosity almost makes him let it all play out. 

But then her eyes flash, and she opens her mouth to round on him, and his survival instinct finally kicks in. 

_Don't_. 

He shoots the warning through the Force, putting as much urgency behind it as he can. He's never tried this before; in fact, he's not entirely sure this can even be done. 

It's worth a try, though.

Rey is still gaping at him when he gives the most minuscule shake of his head. Then, ever so slowly, she closes her mouth, and Ben releases a small breath, gaze drifting back to the debrief at hand. Their bond flashes red with her sharp fit of irritation, and he ignores it. 

Because, really, what else is new?

 _It appears I've caught you at a bad time,_ she observes. Hearing the echo of her voice in his head is a little unnerving, but at least she's abiding by his unspoken request. _I'm assuming you haven't told anyone about_ — 

_About us?_

_About the bond._

_No_ , _and I intend to keep it that way so don't do anything foolish,_ he sternly replies. _Have you?_

At the periphery of his vision, he can see her shifting from one foot to the other.

 _Me neither._

He wants to drop the topic altogether and turn his full attention back to the debrief, but something about the lack of verbalization makes the barb slip with particular ease. 

_What's the point of siding with your so-called friends if you don't talk to them?_

She's rounding the table now, taking small, silent steps toward him as if she's walking on ice. 

_You're my own burden to bear._

It takes considerable effort not to roll his eyes. 

_Right,_ he snaps back. _Because our last time was so terrible, you poor thing._

 _It wasn't—terrible,_ she allows as she steals across the council room and stops right next to him, so close that he can feel the warmth of her body, soft but radiant like a faraway sun. _Let's do it again._

He chances a glance at her to make sure he didn't mishear her. Rey is standing with her arms crossed, shoulders squared like she's ready for another fight, but there is an undeniable, wolfish glimmer to her eyes that makes greed, dark and heinous, twist in his gut. 

There used to be a time—fleeting but nevertheless real—when he would've burned the galaxy to the ground for her without a second thought, when he'd volunteer to pluck every single star from the sky and place it at her feet. 

But now— 

_No_ , he says and tears his eyes from her. _I'm busy. Find someone else to pester._

He doesn't mean that, of course. The mere thought of her being with someone else makes his skin crawl. But she's also chosen the Resistance over him in the past. It is only fair, then, that he would do the same in return, even if it manifests in such a petty way.

Disbelief rolls from her in waves. 

_Come on_ , she wheedles. _I can feel how much you want me._

He sits up closer to the edge of the table, effectively blocking her from view. He's missed too much of the debrief as it is. In fact, it's a downright miracle no one's asked for his input yet. 

_Not now._

Even though he can't see her, the girl's frustration flickers in the Force like a solar flare, and he can feel the heat of her stare bearing down onto his nape. Ben is fully expecting her to put up more of a fight, but she surprises him by calming down—right as an undercurrent of something decidedly mischievous floods in from her side of the bond. 

He braces himself. Whatever it is, the girl is up to something, and it can't be good news. 

Not to him. 

Carefully and silently, like a predator circling a prey, she skulks around his seat until her hips are resting against the glossy head of the table. 

Then, his heart skips a beat because, to his horror, she _jumps_ on it. 

Rey is a quick and weightless shadow as she moves to kneel right in front of him—in front of the entire High Command of the First Order—opting for a place that makes her impossible to ignore without drawing attention to himself.

And, judging by the dark flicker of triumph on her face, Rey _knows_ it.

 _This kriffing girl_ , he thinks, bewilderment mingling with reluctant awe. 

She'll be the death of him someday.

He does his best to school his expression back into boredom and darts a quick glance around the perimeter. Lieutenant Mitaka is still giving a status report on evidence of pirate activity along the Rimma trade route, with all his cohorts seemingly unaware of the indecency taking place just a few feet away.

As her tunic falls to the wayside, leaving her upper body in nothing but an undershirt and arm wrappings, he is unable to do anything but ball his hands into fists and stare, anger bubbling up inside him. Even now, he has to actively fight the instinct to drop everything and worship her. To dote on her and her beautiful defiance, the way her position makes her tower over him like a marble sculpture on a throne of onyx.

 _I won't beg_ , she says as she unwinds the fabric from her forearms, _but I will ask nicely, just once._

And even though he is loath to play along, the words seem to spring out by themselves, as if he's ensnared by a spell of her own insidious making, which—he is. 

_I'm not hearing the request._

She's shrugging out of her shirt now, and a breath catches in his throat when the planes of her skin, freckled and so fragile-looking under the harsh artificial luminescence, are revealed to him. What he wants— _needs_ —is to look away before this whole thing comes to grief, but she's made it next to impossible for him to do so.

He is, essentially, trapped.

Toying with the knot that keeps her chest binding in place, Rey stares down at her hands. 

_The day after—after it happened, I promised myself I wouldn't let it happen again. But I find myself less balanced than ever, like there's a part of me that's off-kilter, and I—I don't know what it is. It feels like I have no control over it. Look, we don't have to be friends. We don't even have to like each other, but we could still—find some mutual ground. If you're willing._

His command cuts through the Force like a knife. 

_Take it off._

She all but smirks and does what he says. Ben can't find it within him to bemoan her getting what she wants, because the moment her breasts emerge from the constricting confines of the fabric, it doesn't feel like defeat at all. He only wishes he could've undressed her himself because, _oh_ , is his every rational thought eclipsed by a sudden urge to touch her, to feel the sweeping softness of her skin, to close his lips around those lovely, dusty-rose nipples that have pebbled from arousal as she, almost shily, runs her fingers over the perfect swells of her breasts.

Teasing him.

A warmth is creeping up his neck and face, one so out of place here, while he fights to keep his composure. Before he can interject—or spur her on himself, he's not sure—she's quietly kicking off her boots and shimmying out of her trousers, all eagerness and no grace, and his brain short-circuits entirely, all thoughts rendered into white noise. 

If the report is still ongoing in the background, Ben can't hear it over the rush of blood in his ears.

 _Demented girl_ , he says, impressed, _do you even know where you are right now?_

She flashes him a mischievous look. _Do you?_

Ben almost starts to frown before remembering that they're not alone here. It's also taking every shred of willpower he has left to meet her eyes as they're talking; his gaze keeps straying down as if anchored by an invisible weight.

 _Where I am is irrelevant_ , he shoots back. _You, however—_

 _You're on the Falcon right now,_ Rey cuts him off and looks around, _sitting on the couch by that large dejarik table—which I'm on, by the way. Just thought you should know. It's—weird seeing you here._

He blinks. _Okay_ .. _?_

For a moment, the girl is studying his face, almost like she's searching for something, for some kind of a reaction that just isn't there. Then, he catches a ripple of disappointment flicker across her features, and she leans back on her elbows. 

_You're useless_ , she sighs. _I'm starting without you._

Without further preamble, she tips her head back—what he wouldn't give to lavish that perfect, unblemished column of her throat with attention, adorning it with marks that would prove he'd been there, that this was real—and her hand dips inside her underwear. 

The view alone makes him feel like he's about to die, expire right there in front of everyone. What they're doing is so wrong in such a thrilling way, but he also has a reputation to uphold, which is easier said than done when he's flushed to the tips of his ears, his erection beginning to strain against his pants. Her breath hitches in her throat, the sweetest, most precious sound that makes his cock twitch in response. It could be just his imagination, but he can _swear_ that he can smell the scent of her skin that reminds him, strangely, of sunlight, mixed with the deeper, lusher scent of sex, and, suddenly, it's all too much for him, and he grips the armrests—

"Supreme Leader." It's been six months, and Hux is still unable to wipe the dry note of disdain from his voice when addressing Ben by his title. "Are you alright?"

Everyone's looking.

Kriff, everyone's _looking_. 

His breathing is coming in a lot more labored than it has any right to be as Rey is proceeding with her ministrations completely unperturbed. It's possible that she can't hear anything, but her energy signature is aglow with a very smug kind of satisfaction, which makes him think that she _can_ . An urge to punish her, to teach her a lesson for always, _always_ interfering with his plans wedges deep inside his chest. 

All in due time. 

Ben clears his throat. "I've heard enough. Let's call the briefing adjourned."

"Sir, with all due respect..." General Pryde pipes up. "There are still some items left on the agenda that I believe are of utmost—"

Rey perks her head and makes a show of miming an exaggerated _sir_ in mock imitation. His blood _boils_ at that, so fiercely that it leaches into Ben's voice and imbues it with a perilous shake. 

"In case you didn't notice, General, that was an order. I want this room cleared. _Now_." 

His entire High Command is at a complete loss, but they also know better than to argue as they all but trip over themselves in an effort to hightail it out of the conference hall. Even though they're moving as fast they can without resorting to outright running, it takes an eternity, a gnawing eternity where every second rings with a pang of fresh irritation as he clutches at the armrests and stares straight ahead.

Finally, _finally_ the pneumatic door hisses shut, and Ben springs into action. With a quick wave of his gloved hand, the door mechanism across the hall jams, locking them both in. He then surges out of the chair, over her, and jerks her chin up with his thumb and index finger.

"What is the matter with you? Tell me," he hisses. 

It is only when he spots her pupils expanding that he realizes how close their faces are. Way too close for comfort. Before he can right his wrongs, however, she seems to arrive at the same conclusion, because Rey leans forward and— 

— _licks_ his mouth. 

It's just a short swipe of her tongue, one that's over before he can react. He pulls away, aggrieved, as the girl bites back a laugh. 

"I said no—" He laments the fragile tones in his voice and tries again. "I said no kissing."

Rey cocks her head, eyes glinting. "Wasn't a kiss. And, before you say anything, it was _so_ worth it just for the look on your face alone."

Such a strange creature, she is. A girl driven by a slew of contradictions and spite, clever enough to push his buttons while seemingly oblivious to what he really wants from her. But he won't— _can't_ —have this conversation with her because she'll close up again and retreat behind her impenetrable walls of denial. It's so frustrating he could scream.

Instead, he breaks one of his self-imposed rules and takes off his gloves.

The bare skin of her waist is even softer than he'd imagined as he runs his palm up the ladder of her ribs, her every breath a delicate flutter under his touch. He's so hard it _hurts_ ; restraint, physical or otherwise, has never been his strong suit so there is a wild and raging part of him that wants to take her right then and there. His cock is throbbing at the memory of her wet heat, how tight and perfect she'd been when he took her. 

Slowly, he leans over her to growl in her ear.

"If you're trying to provoke me, you're doing an excellent job."

The way she shivers at his words is divine, and so is closing his lips around the sensitive skin just below her ear. Wanting revenge, he then, quite forcefully, sucks in a bruise. She's squirming in his arms, hands frantically searching for purchase around his shoulders like she isn't sure if she wants him to continue or not.

He, for one, isn't done yet.

"I thought—" Rey breaks off, breathless, as he licks away the sting. "I thought you said no kissing."

"This isn't kissing," he murmurs against her jugular.

For all the acting out, she is quick to melt in his arms while he noses at her neck in search of the next spot to mottle. His hands roam up to skirt along the underside of her breasts, and Rey jumps, arching into him further, her legs locking around his waist. He finds himself wondering, just briefly, what it would feel like if she ever touched him back with the same rueful devotion.

Something catches in his chest at this line of thought. 

He takes it out by switching up the feather-light caresses with rolling her rock-hard nipples between his fingers. It's not often that he touches someone without the protective layer of leather. In fact, he hardly does this at all, so he commits every bit of this strange experience to memory; how the soft swells of her breasts contrast with their pebbled peaks under his fingers, how the mere fact that she's allowing him to do this fills him with a searing sense of pride. That this much, at least, she is allowing him to do. He'd stop if she showed any signs of resistance—he's not a _complete_ monster, and her preferences are still very much a mystery to him—but she surprises him by involuntarily tightening her grip on him until it more resembles a chokehold. 

Interesting.

Overtaken by a dark streak of curiosity, he extricates himself from her arms and pushes at her sternum, nudging her down until she's on her back, panting and looking up at him with wide, glossy eyes. It's almost like she wants, even _expects_ him to be a little rough with her. 

Maybe that's why she came to him in the first place.

As if she's heard his internal musings, Rey bites her lip and flushes even darker.

"I'm telling you," she grits out. "I've been having these—dark impulses that I can't explain. There's something wrong with me."

"There's nothing wrong with you."

There it is again, that instinctive need to rush to her defense when he knows all too well that she would never do that for him in return. 

She shakes her head. "How else would you explain—all this?"

"Maybe you just like it this way."

_Maybe you just like me._

But, of course, admitting that would be too tall an order for someone as sanctimonious as her, and his patience is quickly running thin. Before she has a chance to talk back and set him off some more, he grabs her hips and drags her closer, bowing his head and closing his lips around her right nipple. She whines at that, each flick of his tongue, each scrape of his teeth drawing out another helpless sound. He enjoys having her at his mercy this way far too much, aware that he won't be able to stop thinking about it for days on end. 

Then, she's tangling her fingers in his hair, the sensation of her massaging his scalp shooting straight to his already aching cock, and another wicked idea strikes him. He pulls away with a wet-sounding pop but only barely, just enough to reposition his mouth and gently ruin the untouched skin of her breast with a fresh bruise.

Her legs against his waist lock him in with renewed force; she's fully gyrating now, grinding against the seam of his trousers to milk the nearest source of friction. With the last vestiges of his restraint, he marks the other breast as well, and then, with a particularly needy roll of her hips, he breaks away, the urge to bury himself inside her hitting with such strength that he feels like he will _die_ if he doesn't accomplish just that in the next ten seconds.

To that end, he scrambles to undo the buttons of his trousers, so frenzied with lust it takes him a little longer than it should. After some fumbling and shuffling, his flushed length springs free, which is a small relief in itself. But Ben doesn't linger. 

He thumbs aside her underwear and, with one vicious thrust, buries himself to the hilt. 

She cries out, fingers searching for purchase and finding nothing. Heart racing, he can't help but marvel at how perfect she feels; how perfectly _they_ fit together in their own conflicting way. The soft fluttering of her slick inner walls as she stretches and adjusts to him drives him wild, but now that his immediate goal is achieved, he's regained just enough sense to resist the urge to fuck her into the table before she can catch up. 

He waits, taking deep, meditative breaths until the girl's eyes meet his and—it's the strangest thing. They've done this before, but the way she's looking at him is new, with a shadow of softness that has no reason being there.

"Hi," she breathes, quietly.

And he, the fool that he is, gulps. "Hi".

His heart is beating too fast, and his chest swells with something warm and foreign. Immediately, danger signals start going off in his brain because he wants to kiss her, feel the way her soft lips slant against his once more, just one last time. This is why he'd taken her from behind the last time, after all. 

Because, deep down, he knows he's a weak, weak man. 

And so, instead of following his instincts, he hooks her knee over his shoulder. It somehow pushes him in even further, the new angle making her grip him so tightly he sees stars flashing before his eyes. 

Choking back a groan, he starts thrusting. He doesn't go gentle, not this time, not when he knows she doesn't want him to. She's nothing but magnificent, her head tipped back in a wordless plea, her bouncing breasts and straining neck marked with lovebites. It's just them and the sound of the table rattling and the wet, wet slap of skin on skin. It's everything. 

His fingers dig into the swells of her toned thighs as her body grips him like she's intent on not letting go, like every time he pulls away is an offense against nature itself. 

"

"You enjoy a good challenge, don't you, Rey?" he huffs as he shakes a dark, wayward lock of hair from his eye. "Fighting me and then taking my cock—you're so beautiful. So beautiful and so mine."

Somehow, she manages to bare her teeth in a snarl, defiant till the very end. 

"I am not yours, _Ben._ "

She is, though. At that moment, she is irrevocably his, and the very sound of his name, uttered in such a breathless manner, makes him swell and twitch inside her. He has to curb his break-neck pace just a little bit to keep himself from coming right then and there. 

Rey, however, is having none of it. She shoots him an offended look that screams _don't even think about it_ and picks up the slack where he left off, broken little whimpers tearing from her throat. White-hot pressure is building up with worrying speed. Cursing under his breath, he lets go of the thigh wrapped around his middle and sets to work, thumbing at her clit that glistens in the most alluring shade of pink underneath coarse, dark hair. One day, he'd like to put his tongue on it, find out if she tastes as good as she looks. And the prospect of _that_ —them having a future, even if it's just a string of stolen moments and hushed gasps—makes him run his mouth again.

"We could have this. Nobody has to know—" he garbles, half-incoherent. "Just the two of us, whenever you need to—need me—"

He's not entirely sure she even heard him; her face is scrunched up like she's in pain, every muscle in her body hard and taut, but the jerk of her head vaguely resembles a nod, loose strands coming undone from her buns, and then _she's_ coming undone too, clenching and spasming around him so hard his vision whites out at the edges. He's pulled in with her, helpless to resist the current of her pleasure as he empties inside her with one last punishing thrust. 

When he regains his bearings, her body is coated with a thin sheen of sweat. His spent cock starts to soften, but she's so warm and malleable that he doesn't pull out, at least not yet, wishing to stay inside for as long as she'll have him.

  
  


* * *

Once again, she's not quite meeting her eyes in the aftermath. Not while he's helping her dress, undoes her ruined hairdo, unleashing dark-caramel waves around her shoulders and over the bruised neck, not while he's helping her tie her arm wrappings. The girl doesn't say anything—doesn't say anything at _all_ —so they cooperate wordlessly until she's once again every inch the model Jedi. 

She's turned her back to him when she speaks, silhouetted against a wide viewport boasting millions of glittering stars that she cannot see.

"When—" she tentatively ventures, " _if_ we clash blades on the battlefield… Don't go easy on me. I'll hold it against you if you do."

Silence stretches out as he's processing the implication behind her words. 

"Do you know something that I don't?"

"I can't tell you that," she's quick to say in a hard voice. 

The Resistance has been laying low for the past several months, licking their wounds and regrouping. While they're in no position to pose a threat—not anymore—the rebels are still a permanent blip on his radar, his own unfinished business. Leave it to his dear mother to never admit defeat, even when it's staring directly in her face.

The face he hasn't seen in more than a decade, he realizes as a cold fist closes around his heart.

"I see." He stalks forward to stand next to her, hands clasped behind his back while in front of him stretches the dark and twinkling depths of the galaxy. "I'll keep an eye out for any Resistance sightings, I suppose."

"You do that."

"And Rey... "

She turns her head. "What?" 

"Don't get yourself killed before I get there."

Rey almost, _almost_ smiles. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me on [Tumblr](https://themoonmoths.tumblr.com/)! 🌻  
> Later edit: I literally *just* made [a twitter account](https://twitter.com/themoonmoths) so follow me for cat pics and Ben Solo sad hours!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Attention, attention! I just made a [Twitter](https://twitter.com/themoonmoths) account! It’s still teeny-tiny, so please consider giving me a follow! 🥺
> 
> This chapter should be called Trope City, and I will not be apologizing, no sir.  
> Minor note: technically, according to the canon, these two love-hate birds have indeed clashed during the gap between the movies. So if you squint really, *reeeally* hard, this story could still be considered canon compliant. How it pans out from here, however, I’ll leave to you. ❤️
> 
> (Because what do we say to the parts of canon we don’t like?  
> Not today.
> 
> And also, who am I kidding, this has totally turned into an AU, mwuah)

The third time comes only three days later.

His hair, still damp from the shower, tickles his bare shoulders as Ben assesses the damage. A stray blaster bolt has grazed his shoulder, leaving behind a red, stinging welt. A large, purple-red contusion blooms on his abdomen from where he got kneed in the stomach, angry-looking but painless. A split lip. Some random bruising on his back and chest. 

All in all, though, the injuries are minor, not worth fetching the med droid for. Minor injuries for a minor skirmish, the first of many more to come. 

He's about to put his shirt on and head for the bridge when the telltale shift of the Force's currents alert him of her incoming presence. Ben stares at the crispy clean, black shirt waiting for him on the table and sighs.

What's the point.

"Long time no see," says a teasing voice from behind him.

He turns to find her in his quarters, hair down and casually leaning against a quarterstaff she's propped against the ground. The very picture of nonchalance if not for her clothes that have been rendered filthy from all the blood and mud as well as the fresh, glistening scrapes she's sporting on her cheek and forehead, which—definitely isn't the condition he'd left her in. 

"What happened?" he rumbles, frowning. 

"What—this?" Rey gestures vaguely at her face, and it doesn't escape his notice how the movement makes her wince. _Great_. "It's nothing, just some flesh wounds."

"Flesh wounds," he echoes levelly as he takes a step closer. To his surprise, she doesn't retreat. "Who did this, Rey?"

She scoffs. "I'll tell you who _didn't_ do this. You. Don't think I didn't notice you were holding back."

"I wasn't," he lies. "Besides, did you _want_ me to give you serious injuries?"

"That's what enemies _do_ , Ben," she explains as if to a child. "They injure each other. A lot."

Her eyes rake across his bruised torso, then up the ragged line of his scar, glinting with dark and unconcealed pride. It could just be the post-combat adrenaline ebbing from his bloodstream, but all of a sudden he feels very, very tired. 

"Who did this to you?" he asks again. 

She straightens her spine to imbue her upcoming rebuff with a veneer of bravado, but the rash movement causes her to flinch, and her free hand darts up to cradle her ribs. 

She's hurting more than she's letting on. 

As the last of her fighting spirit dwindles, Rey finally obliges him. 

"Some guards picked the wrong fight while Finn and Chewie were helping the prisoners escape. Got them in the end, though," she boasts through her teeth. "All four of them."

From the very beginning of their long-overdue rematch, his goal had been to tire her out until she could no longer wreak havoc upon his ground troops—and herself. Clearly, he'd underestimated her. He keeps forgetting that she is like a wounded animal in this regard, unleashing her razor-sharp claws only when backed into a corner.

And, oh, is it breathtaking.

He nods down at her. "Let me see."

Her fingers clutch at the dirtied side of her tunic like she's afraid of him stealing it, somehow. Ridiculous child. 

Patience fraying, he raises his voice. " _Rey_ , _let me see._ "

"No!" 

Rey moves as if to fall back a pace, but something is clearly wrong because the moment she puts her weight on her left leg, the girl yelps and stumbles and— 

Falls. 

Right into his arms.

"Some flesh wounds, was it?" he asks drily as he wraps a supporting arm around her waist.

She barely weighs anything. She's gained some muscle mass since they'd first met which has rounded out her curves, but underneath it all she's still a scrawny little thing. Carrying her wherever she needs to would take no effort at all on his part, but he knows her too well to even bother to try. 

"Shut up," she hisses, looping a hand of her own around his shoulders. "I was about to walk to the med bay, anyway."

"I would've loved to see that, considering that _you can't walk_."

For a moment, she sets her jaw and screws her eyes shut, though it's hard to tell whether it's out of irritation or genuine pain. Perhaps both. 

Together, they carefully make their way to the bed as Rey hobbles by his side. By the time he deposits her on the edge of the mattress and drops to his knees, her face has taken on a worrisome pallor. 

"A sprained ankle and at least a few broken ribs," Ben intones after he's looked her over. "I'm surprised you were able to stand at all."

Her response comes late as she takes a moment to focus on her breathing in short exhales through her mouth, as she channels calming currents of the Force that wind and wrap around him as well as her. Her Force signature is warm and bright, but he senses an underlying edge to it as well, something distinctively colder and more serrated, not unlike a lightning bolt that's ever discharging in the background. Something that shouldn't be there, not in her. 

He files the discovery away for later. Whatever it is, it can wait. 

"I don't know how I did it," she admits and swallows thickly. "It happened during the fight—a guard nicked me in the side with one of those heavy batons, and I had a bad fall. Except that—I can't explain what happened. I mean, I felt the pain so sharply, but I—drew from it somehow. Used it for my advantage, channeled so much energy that they didn't stand a chance."

Ben doesn't say anything for a long time.

"You know," he says quietly, "pain is a powerful conductor for the dark side."

Her bottom lip trembles almost like she was already expecting that answer. Sitting there, shoulders shaking with shuddery breaths, fragile and pale and so very lost.

He is torn. He senses the tremors of her turmoil with as much clarity as if it were his own. His instinctive desire is to reach out and comfort her. To say that, whatever this is, they'll figure it out together. Hell, he wants to _hug_ her, gather her up in his arms where it's safe from all the evils in the galaxy. But the space between them feels insurmountable, somehow. 

That, and her ribs are cracked. 

On the other hand, he'd be a fool to overlook all the possibilities her recent dark side tendencies have opened up. He'd given up hope, but perhaps there is a way he could get her to join him, after all. Not through the good they've shared but rather the darkness they now have in common.

Very, very interesting.

He'll have some research to conduct once this connection lets up. For now, though…

"I want to try something," he mumbles.

Slowly, so as not to spook her, he places a hand on her thigh and closes his eyes. This should be more difficult, but the reality is that it's as easy and natural as breathing. The bond is the perfect vessel through which the Force flows back and forth like water, and it takes hardly any effort on his part to give her some of his energy.

When he opens his eyes, he finds her staring at him wide-eyed. The cuts on her face have healed up completely, and he surmises that so have the other, more serious injuries littering her body.

With a look of disbelief, Rey gropes along her side, finding nothing. She then springs to her feet. The first step she takes is tentative, ever so careful. Once she puts her whole weight on the injured foot, however, a quiet gasp of relief leaves her lips, and she does a small circle around the room while Ben sits up on the bed, resisting the urge to lie down. 

It didn't seem like much at the time, but now that some of his energy has been safely transferred to her, he's left feeling a bit winded. Like he could do with a long nap.

The girl remembers that he's there and turns to him.

"You didn't have to do that," she tells him. "I told you I could've gotten this fixed in the med bay."

Scratch being tired. He's utterly _exhausted_. 

" _Great_ ," he snaps in a fit of pique and plops down onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling. "Next time I won't bother."

"Yes, you shouldn't."

"I won't."

Silence cloaks his quarters. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Rey shifting her weight. The awkwardness is that much more amplified through the bond, ricocheting back and forth between them, but Ben has no intention of doing anything about it. As his lids grow heavier, he thinks about how unfair it is that, out of all the people in the galaxy, it has to be this ungrateful little scavenger that he's—what, exactly? 

Before he can figure it out, however, he's fast asleep. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


The fourth time occurs just a day later.

He's in his bed already, wearing nothing but his loose sleeping pants. His gaze has been glued to the bluish screen of the datapad for so long that the piercing beginnings of a headache are stirring just behind his eyes. He's been a little distracted as of late, which has resulted in a ludicrous backlog of reports and communiques in need of reviewing. For that, he places the blame solely on Rey. The girl has been on his mind ever since they met, but lately it's been getting worse to the point where a small but cloying part of him is always thinking about her regardless of the hour or place. Regardless of _everything_ , really. 

It's becoming a problem. 

Even now, as he's powering through the last of the reports, he has to actively stop himself from wandering about her—where she is, how she's doing, whether she's thinking about him, too. The task stretches well into the night, but a headache is a small price to pay for finishing it all up in one go. He may be many things, but a quitter is not one of them. 

Half-way through the last report, Ben pauses to rub his eyes. As he does so, he feels the currents of the Force dance around him. The telltale glimmer of energy in his veins that is so unique to their connections, heralding her arrival. 

When he opens his eyes, she's there. Perching at the other end of the bed, also in her bed clothes which, by the looks of it, only consist of a charcoal-grey oversized shirt. It reminds him of their very first Force connection—so long ago now—when they'd stared at each other from the opposite sides of the med bay in petrifying silence, every second charged with tension. She'd unloaded her blaster on him then, and, judging from the tense line of her shoulders, he half-expects her to do the same right now.

What he _doesn't_ expect is for her expression to twist in something akin to relief. Then it darkens, and he— 

He just _knows_. 

Slowly, he sets the datapad down. She's onto him like a flash, pouncing from the other side of the bed. The strength with which Rey collides with his chest knocks the air out of his lungs, and, as his head hits the pillow, his hands shoot up to circle her waist on their own accord. 

She seems so tiny, sprawled on top of him like that. Tiny and— _restless_ , bending down to nose at his neck almost immediately like some poor, affection-starved animal. Bereft of his trusty layers of armor, he feels _everything_ , and every point of contact sets his skin alight as he strokes her spine helplessly. It's so much that, by the time Rey's need for—whatever it is that she's doing ebbs, he's already half-erect. 

His hand dips underneath the hem of her shirt to stroke at the small of her back, and she lets out a contented little sigh against the sensitive skin of his neck, and then she's rearing up, breathless and flushed and everything he's ever wanted.

He's also not sure if this frenzy of hers is because she's in a good mood or a really bad one, but, at this point, he's too afraid to ask. And so he keeps his mouth shut as she wrenches her shirt over her shoulders. His cock _twitches_ at the sight of those gorgeous, rosy nipples so close to his face. Ensnared by an urgent need to seal his lips over one as soon as possible, he moves to sit up, but Rey plants a firm hand on his chest and all but shoves him back down. 

Ah. There she is. 

"Watch out, little Jedi," he says, well aware of how much his words will irk her. "With how eagerly you're climbing on to my lap, I might be lead to believe that you actually like me."

Right on cue, she scoffs weakly at the nearby rumpled sheets. "You wish. If you must know, I've had a long day, and I needed—" She grits her teeth. " _Need_ —"

"Me," he finishes for her, gloating. 

"Some _relief_ ," she corrects him with a note of finality. "I had half a mind to ask you during our last—thing, but then you went and fell asleep on me." The corner of her mouth twitches. "I've never seen anyone spontaneously fall asleep from anger before. Better than throwing a tantrum, though, so props to you for that."

He very nearly snorts but catches himself at the last second. Still, Rey must have picked up on something through the bond as her shoulders relax by degrees, and she scoots down his abdomen until she settles over the needy bulge in his trousers. Her lips part as a small sound of surprise catches in her throat—either she didn't expect to find him quite so ready so fast or she's accidentally rubbed against him the right way. But there is no mistaking the waves of excitement, so sparkling and pure, from her side of the bond as she gets comfortable on her newfound seat. 

His hands once bracket her hips, fingers digging into her curves with a little more force than necessary. The tiny frown of concentration as she wriggles around to find the perfect angle that works for both of them is to die for, and a tiny part of him can't help but wonder whether she'd look just as adorably serious if she were trying to get him off in some other ways. 

Rey darts him a tentative glance. "Does this—work for you?"

He nods, robbed of words. It does feel a bit alien to let her do all the work, to be in such a _passive_ position. But because it is her, he's willing to give it a go even when every instinct in his body is howling to roll her over and ravage her himself. 

Before long, she finds her rhythm, grinding down against his erection in a way that makes him see stars. Even more satisfying than the immediate pleasure—a gift in itself, really—is watching the way her breasts bounce so tantalizingly as she chases their combined peak. His gaze seems to have found permanent residence there, the magenta-tinted evidence of their last tryst still mottling her golden skin. A dark and tumultuous sense of pride swells in his chest. He knows without needing to ask that she's never allowed anyone else to do this to her, to see her in such a vulnerable state.

She may deny it like her life depends on it, but she is already his. 

"Rey," he grits out. "Let me play with you. I can give you what you want."

Even three layers of fabric aren't enough to conceal how wet she is, how warm. It's the most delightful kind of torture, to skirt along the edge of what they both really want but not quite get it. He presses down on her waist, eager for more, and the resulting burst of pleasure makes him jolt so hard she's almost knocked off of him. Rey has to brace her hands against his chest to steady herself.

"I don't know," she drawls in teasing tones. "The previous bruises haven't healed yet, you brute. And I do enjoy seeing you suffer—stars, will you be _still_ —"

"You liked it," he points out, half-delirious. "Look at yourself, you can't even come anymore without me there. It's that bad."

She doesn't deny it. She also doesn't show any mercy when she speaks, each word accentuated by a punishing roll of her hips that takes his breath away. "I. Know. That. Do you think I asked for this? Because I didn't. But I can't—can't—" Whatever it is that she's trying to say splinters apart, dissolving into a small cry of pure ecstasy as she grinds down even harder, so near the edge. He throws his head back, unable to contain himself. Somehow, she manages to soldier on, her voice so tight it sounds like she's holding back tears. "Even if I wanted to, Ben, we just _can't_ —"

A guttural groan blossoms at the back of his throat. This curse, more desert demon than woman, sent down from the furthest corner of the galaxy to haunt his every waking hour and derail his whole life. He resents her, resents what she’s turned him into, resents that she doesn’t seem to understand that he would _die_ for her, worship the very ground beneath her feet… 

If only she’d see him—not the idealized version she secretly festers hope for, not the monster that plagues her nightmares. Him. For what he truly is. Beyond names and legacies and allegiances.

Just him. 

The girl is on the verge of climaxing, every muscle in her body drawn taut, and so is he. Using his vice-like leverage on her waist, he pulls her off from his aching erection. She stares at him, eyes wide as saucers as her Force signature crackles with the first discharges of frustration. Still holding her at an arm's length, he uses her rattled state to sit up. Her chest is heaving heavily, and she opens her mouth to protest the abrupt interruption, but he surges forward, slanting his lips over hers instead.

It's just one kiss, rough and searing with an edge of bitter desperation. But it gets the job done because when he pulls away, she's gaping at him like she's never seen him before. 

"Listen," he urges hoarsely, forehead nearly pressed up against hers. "Whatever resentments and fears you hold, I have them too. But the quicker you let go and accept that your destiny is closely intertwined with mine, the quicker we'll be able to _do_ something about it. To make it right. Now—" He clears his throat because she's still stock-still in his arms, and his arousal really _hurts_. "Climb on my cock, Rey. I need to come inside you. Please."

She blinks once, twice, then shakes her head weakly. He helps her by pushing his sleeping pants down just enough for his aching length to spring free, and then she's pushing the gusset of her underwear aside and wrapping her hands around his shoulders. She sinks down onto his length slowly and with a hiss, her face hidden in the slope of his neck.

From there on out, all slowness flies out the door as they lose themselves in each other, merge into one being that's made of nothing but shuddering breaths and starlight. He's the first one to fall over the edge, bottoming out one last time as he empties himself in her welcoming heat, and then she's following suit, clutching him with her dear life, so frail and strong in his arms, quivering with the aftershocks. 

His one and only.

  
  


* * *

A lot of unsaid rules are being broken that night. She's lying on his chest, for once too tired to argue, fingers lazily tracing the cluster of birthmarks on his right pectoral. Hand draped over her waist, he's waiting for her to fall asleep so that he can sneak out, enjoying their threadbare armistice while he still can. But minutes roll by, and she's still wide awake. Still touching him with the kind of careful and searching tenderness that is as new to him as it is her to her.

 _We could have this, you know,_ she says to him through their bond, too scared to utter the words out loud. _For real, not just in stolen midnight hours. If you changed sides, and if we can broker some kind of an arrangement with the Resistance. If they're willing to forgive you, that is, and if you—_

If, if, if.

He lets out the heaviest of sighs. "You know that's not possible, Rey."

"So what—" A trace of anger leaches into her tone, and her questing fingers draw to a halt. "That's _it_?"

Ben isn't quite ready to reveal the offer he has in store for her, not until he gathers enough information to erase any doubt. So he shrugs. 

"That's it."

She pushes up on one arm, sheets sliding from her bare shoulders, and glares down at him. He meets her eyes with the most indifferent expression in his repertoire. It only serves to rile her up even more. He feels the way her festering anger swells inside her, more and more until it's threatening to burst, and then— 

"This was a mistake," she says thickly, her eyes shining. "All of it."

He's been expecting this blow for some time now—ever since he first kissed her, if he's being honest—but it hurts all the same. A nerve twitches under his eye while he draws on the Force to steady himself because he cannot lash out right now, he _won't_ —

"If you truly believe that then you can leave."

It's the hardest thing he's ever had to say, but it had to be done. What gives him some solace even if she does end up doing what he says is the knowledge that they're not done yet, not by a longshot. Unlike his parents who used to mean the world to each other only to end up separated for almost a decade, he knows that his and Rey's paths will cross once more. Lovers, after all, are subject to loss and heartbreak, but the ways of enemies inevitably interject. 

Even if she leaves, they would see each other again.

But she doesn't. He waits and waits, and she's looking at him with haunted, glistening eyes in complete silence. 

It is only much later, when she's fallen asleep on his chest, that something gives in his chest and he can breathe again. He knows that he should go, that he must if he has any dignity at all, but he has none and so he doesn't. He strokes her hair and listens to her deep, steady breaths. Staying. 

In the end, she wasn't able to leave. 

It is only fitting, then, that neither can he.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! ❤️  
> Subscribe to my profile for more upcoming Reylo goodness! My two next projects are a Rey-takes-his-hand canon divergence fic aaand a fake dating A/B/O (very left field for me, I know, but I desperately need to write something lighter for once :D).
> 
> You can find me on [Tumblr](https://themoonmoths.tumblr.com/) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/themoonmoths)!
> 
> love ya xx  
> Jo


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